


Off the Clock

by GothamGumshoe (CypressSunn)



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Gotham City Citizens Are The Real Heroes, Gotham City is Terrible, Gotham General Hospital, Medical Procedures, Medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-19 07:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29622993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/pseuds/GothamGumshoe
Summary: “You’re not a superhero,” Doctor Thompkins would be reminding Tam if she were here. She’d have that same tired scowl and clipped, piercing tone. “Remember that always and it will make you a better doctor, Tamara. We are only human, no matter how many lives we save.”But Doctor Thompkins isn’t here in this back alley, standing over a dying superhero. She isn’t their last hope. Tam is. And anything less than superheroics has never been good enough for Doctor Fox.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37
Collections: Black Is Beautiful 2021





	Off the Clock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HandmaidenOfHorror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandmaidenOfHorror/gifts).



> My dear giftee, thank you for requesting Tam Fox. I was thrilled to write for her and envision what her little slice of Gotham City might look like. And of course, I hope you enjoy it too. Happy reading!

The explosion isn’t what surprises her.

It’s nearing three in the morning as the good Doctor Fox is staggering on her way home when the first boom rips through the distance. There’s no immediate need to take cover. No falling debris, no shrapnel. Only the tremors that rattle every window pane along 38th ave and the smoke trail she can almost make out— maybe two boroughs over. The street lamps flicker and fade down the block for a moment’s held breath before the electricity kicks back on. Somehow the gray lined buildings seem even dimmer than before.

In every direction, she’s sure the city’s plunging into chaos. But there’s nothing she can do about that outside of an operating theatre, save for stopping to steady herself on a nearby phone post until the next aftershocks pass.

Even then, she’s too damned exhausted to be of much use to anyone. On some level, she’s tangentially aware of the police sirens and the assorted sounds of mayhem growing closer. There’s scattered yelling, screeching tires. It’s harder still to miss the rolling blackouts, the buzzing emergency alerts in the front pocket of her scrubs. But it’s been a long day, and an even longer shift. Most thoughts and observances that aren’t about putting one foot in front of the other are relegated to the background. 

She just has to survive long enough to get home. Get out of these scrubs. Shower. Maybe even eat.

Just a block from her building, she passes Tully’s pawn shop where there’s a line of old used television sets in front of the shiny front window. Each is tuned to the Gotham City News Network. A pair of red-faced reporters on every screen are relaying the same dire message; ‘due to the crisis at the Trigate Bridge, all emergency services will be unavailable until further notice…’

Tam scoffs, muttering to no one but Vicki Vale’s news hungry face, “What else is new? Every day’s an emergency in this damn town.”

She had spent the better part of the last eighteen hours elbow deep in emergencies. Ballistic trauma, stab wounds , hit and runs. A near internal decapitation, two victims pulverized by a stampede, a man with dual shattered femurs from apparently leaping from the window of a burning building, and the _pièce de résistance_ to top off the night, a patient with a misdiagnosed flail chest that nearly coded on the waiting room floor. By the end of the fourth consecutive surgery assisting with Doctor Thompkins, the Chief caught wind of how long Tam had been on shift. Pulling her aside in the Fellow’s lounge, he informed her as politely as possible that she was being kicked out and forbidden from setting foot in Gotham Mercy General without at least eight hours sleep.

Tam had talked him down to six. 

Driving a hard bargain was a Fox family gift, a trait passed down from her father. He was, afterall, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Tam learned a thing or two about getting things done the right way — her way— and all without even following in his footsteps. Though, now more than halfway into her residency, dragging her weary way up an eight floor walk up because she still refuses to touch the family money, Tam’s sure a doctorate in economics would be less exhausting.

“Why did I go to medical school again?” Tam asks herself, only a touch delirious. She’s making her way down her hallway, eyes half shut and almost unable to read the numbers on the doors. “Wait, I remember, _‘I just want to make a change, Dad’_ ,” she’d told him and everyone. “ _‘Money and vigilantes can only get you so far, Dad. Besides, Batman’s never performed an open heart surgery…’_ ” Yawning, Tam pauses outside her door. Twice she’s already twisted the incorrect keys in the lock. “At least… I don’t think Batman’s ever held a scalpel. And there’s no way he’s been accepted into FACS… or could he?”

The floors and walls rumble from the repeated, far-off explosions. Tam barely manages to flinch. She’s too busy deciding that she’s going to be _very pissed_ off if the Batman’s ever performed so much an appendectomy. 

Groaning, she slinks inside her loft. Heads straight for the couch, leaving a trail of hospital sneakers and her hair-tie and navy blue scrubs she will need to incinerate at some point. But first, she drifts…

Until a crack of rapid fire thunder bears down on her front door.

Heart jolting out of her chest, she sits up. If it’s bombs, there’s nowhere to take cover. An intruder, she has no weapon except the bat in the closet and she’s not even wearing pants—

“¡Médica Zorro!” calls a frightened voice between bouts of pounding rancor. “¡Ayudenos, por favor!”

Oh shit.

Still startled, Tam spills off the couch cushions inelegant and sleep-logged. But she hits the ground running like she always does. Hopping into a pair of shorts and belting a bathrobe tight around her body, she yanks the door open.

The knocking once the door is fully open, and there’s Fernando, a neighbor from a couple doors over. Good kid, Tam’s always thought. Scrawny and bright-eyed. From a real big family and ready to graduate high school in a year or two. But right now he’s got a panicked look in his eyes. A liquid red smear on his shirt.

Tam’s heart sinks. “Nano, what’s happened?”

“Sígueme, please,” he begs, gesturing for Tam to follow behind him, “we have to move quickly.”

Tam’s still stepping into her slip-ons and pulling her go-bag down from the top shelf of the closet. She keeps it there in case of emergencies, for the local families without insurance to cover a stay at Gotham Mercy. It’s mostly gear she’s bought herself… plus a few surplus items no one will miss from hospital storage. (Tam’s not exactly proud of that last part, but until she’s a full-fledged concierge doctor for the downtrodden, a girl’s gotta take what she can get.)

Traipsing after her frightened neighbor, Tam’s working her damndest to pick up the pace. Her faculties are still coming back on line and while she might be awake, making it down the stairwell is still a struggle. Especially with her med-kit slung heavy on her shoulder and the metal baseball bat tucked under her elbow, just in case.

“Nano, you haven’t told me what this is about,” Tam reminds him as he ducks around a corner.

“It’s Alazul!” he explains without explaining. “There was fighting, and then he fell—”

“Azul?” she asks, breathlessly, “Blue who, Nano? Who?”

Fernando shoves open the rear emergency exit with the yellowing paper sign that warns of an alarm that was disconnected in the nineties. He and Tam rush into the darkened alley behind their building. The first thing Tam notices is the smell of refuse and smoke. The only light she can make out is streetlights edging off on either end of the path, tall shadows cast by mounds of boxes, crates, trash bins, and a stack of hubcap-less tires.

“There!” Fernando exclaims, pointing to an obscured shape behind a tarp hanging from a dumpster. Tam can’t see it at first, but there’s the outline of a body laying prone against the hard ground.

It isn’t moving.

Quicker now than before, she’s kneeling down, checking for vitals. Airway, breathing, circulation. There’s a lot of labored inhalation, erratic and heavy. She’s feeling for his rhythms when she notices the body armor. Blue and black.

 _Alazul_. Blue wing.

“Goddammit, Nightwing,” Tam curses, doing her best to remove a layer of chest armor and the thickened gloves on his wrist. His skin there is cold to the touch. His fingers tinged blue. A frantic nonsensical thought shoots through her head. _Dr Freeze? in this part of town?_ But then she remembers he’s been locked away for ages. That by all reports, it was mostly turf wars tearing apart Trigate and keeping the city on high alert.

That was the trouble of trying to be a rational mind in a world full of insanity. The improbable injuries and symptoms that rolled into her emergency room could make her head spin.

 _Stay steady, Fox,_ she tells herself. _You’re a doctor. This is your patient. The rest is only noise._

Below her, Nightwing exhales one more time. His chest does not reinflate. Tugging out her stethoscope, she does what any good physician does. She listens. Hears his right side is struggling. He can’t get air into his chest.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Medica Zorro?” Fernando pleads with his sweet worried face. But Tam can’t pay attention. She can’t look away. There’s a problem here. A soon to be fatal one. She needs to solve it, right here and now with what she has. She can’t wish and hope for help or equipment or even a gurney to rest her patient on.

She reels the symptoms through all she knows.

“Unresponsive. Weak pulse. Potentially hypotensive. Cool, clammy skin. Most likely low oxygen saturation. Left lung isn’t expanding.”

Then it hits her.

“His pleural cavity is filling,” she diagnoses, already tearing through her med-kit, searching when Fernando asks, “what does that mean?” but she doesn’t have time to explain. She’s already onto the next plan of action. “He needs an emergency thoracotomy. Fifth intercostal space. Drain the cavity. Where is that freaking chest tube!?”

A second later, she has it and the collection bag. Tam grits her teeth. She lost valuable seconds. Later, she’ll kick herself for not keeping her bag organized enough to find anything by feel, even in the dark.

“You’re not a superhero,” Doctor Thompkins would be reminding Tam if she were here. She’d have that same tired scowl and clipped, piercing tone. “Remember that always and it will make you a better doctor, Tamara. We are only human, no matter how many lives we save.”

But Doctor Thompkins isn’t here in this back alley, standing over a dying superhero. She isn’t their last hope. Tam is. And anything less than superheroics has never been good enough for Doctor Fox. With another life in her hands, she wants to be more than human. She needs to be up to the task.

Shoving the chest tube into Fernando’s hands, she gloves up and unwraps a silver scalpel. A quick once over with her lighter and saline rinse to cool it — urban problems require urban solutions, she’d told herself when she developed that particular field technique — and without any more hesitation, she incises right between Nightwing’s ribs. It’s a drip of blood at first, but more gathers. It’s nothing too concerning, especially if her diagnosis is correct. Then with deft, sure hands she’s inserting the chest tube. The telltale hiss lets her know she was right. Air and fluid and blood stream into the collection bag, pressure alleviating, and at last, Nightwing inhales deeper. His eyes even crack open.

Face flushed and suddenly aware of every milligram of adrenaline flushing through her, Tam lets herself breathe, too.

“You can go inside, now, Nano.” Even with his ecstatic face and relieved eyes, the boy looks unsure about leaving her side. She reassures him. “It’s okay. you did great. You did better than great. But your job is all done here. Go get somewhere safe now.”

Fernando nods. They both know it’s dangerous to be out here, especially if they’re found helping a vigilante. No matter the good deed, there is always a risk some low-grade thug would take personal offense to good Samaritans helping one of the Masks. 

“I knew you could help,” Fernando says, squeezing her shoulder through her bathrobe. He’s thanking her again as he rushes back inside. He leaves the backdoor propped open for her, though. Tam makes sure to file away a promise to herself. She is definitely writing a letter of recommendation to whatever university Fernando chooses.

Still kneeling in the dark, Tam does her best to keep track of Nightwing’s reparations. She’s got her bag valve mask out and fixed over his mouth and nose. So far she’s liking his chances for recovery, especially with house his vitals have improved. But she’s not sure how in the hell she’s getting into a real facility. There’s no ambulances for miles. It’s not like Nightwing’s walking out of here in this state.

A few times, he tries to speak.

“Bombs… towers… bullets… dying…”

“Yeah, a lot of that going around,” she tells him gently. “Tell me all about it.” With her encouragement, he manages the words, “Bane…” and “Black Mask” and “Arkham…” which covers most of the usual suspects.

“It’s going to be alright, Nightwing—” she promises, just as another tremor quakes the city. Tam covers his body with her own. Keeps him steady as the world rocks to and fro. She hears something speeding towards them. Fast. Too fast. She holds tight to her patient and doesn’t budge.

Then the Batmobile rolls up.

She’s expecting the man himself when the window rolls down, not Robin. Not Tim.

“Back away from the—” the eyes behind the mask blink. “Wait, Tam? Is that you?”

Tam blanks herself. It’s been such a long time since they’ve seen each other. But she’s sure it’s Tim. Even with the new suit and the new haircut and the gravel in his voice. Even with how long it’s been. She just knows him, just like that.

But she snaps out of it, just as fast.

“Patient was unresponsive and displaying dyspnea with irregular lung sounds. Signs pointed to a hemothorax, and when he began coding the need for immediate intervention—”

“So you performed an emergency field thoracotomy?” Tim asks, cutting to the chase.

Which isn’t how medical hand-offs go. “Hey, only one of us went on to medical school,” Tam reminds him. Because she’s still _mostly_ sure none of them are board certified, genius level crime fighters or not.

The back door to the sleek black vehicle slides open, and there’s Red Hood and one of the Batgirls. Black Bat, they call her now. Or maybe Orphan? Together, they lean over Nightwing, performing their own once over.

“He needs a real ER and an operating room, stat,” Tam informs them, watching them expertly load up Nightwing into the back. These field recoveries must be second nature. “Doctor Thompkins should still be on shift down at Mercy.”

“She doesn’t like masks,” the red one points out. Tam can’t see his face, but she can tell he’s eyeing her, suspicious. He doesn’t say it, but she’s sure he’s asking _what’s a girl like you doing in an alley like this?_

Crossing her arms, she sure returns sentiment. Because she’s mostly guessed that Nightwing is Dick Grayson, that Orphan is Cass Cain, but the Hood is a mystery to her. And if he can’t quite figure what to make of her red-sleep deprived eyes, her mismatched shoes, her ratty bathrobe, her long and wild mane of kinks and curls, then she’s fine with that. All he needs to know is she’s an MD, and a damn good one.

“Tell Leslie that Doctor Fox referred this patient to her. That should open some doors.”

To which Red nods, a second of solemn acceptance passing between them. But then he turns to the Batmobile and shoots off, “Hey Boy Wonder, let me drive, I’ll get him there faster. Or at least before he codes again.”

“Not a chance.” Tim sticks his head out the window. “Thanks for the assist Ta— I mean, Doctor Fox, we really appreciate you going out of your way—”

Tim’s eyes find hers for a second and Tam has to cut him off.

“Robin, your brother is bleeding internally.”

“Yes. Right.” In a flash, the window is rolled up and the Batmobile skids away at furious speeds. Leaving Tam alone in the city once again, holding nothing but her bat and her med-kit, more exhausted than ever.

She sleepwalks back to her apartment, unsteady on her feet. The chemical surge that hit her system to keep her going is powering down. It’s leaving her drained and worn-down. She could sleep through ten explosions at this rate. And she just might have to. It is Gotham City after all. And the world was always ending somewhere.

But even then, a girl’s gotta be off the clock some time.

When Tam’s head finally, finally hits the pillow, her last waking thought is contemplating just what are the odds that Batman’s ever done a surgical rotation at a teaching hospital. 

* * *

When her eyes open, there’s Batman in a surgical mask standing over her. Cocking her head to the side, Tam rubs her eyes. Blinks and blinks, letting the light in. The surgical mask disappears, but the Batman is still there, still very real, and very much in her apartment.

“Good… morning…” she hedges, breaking the ice.

Batman’s face barely moves when he speaks. “It’s the afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” she tries again. Except— “Oh, no, oh no! That hospital, I needed to be back at the hospital hours ago!”

“You’re taking a personal day. It’s already been cleared with your Chief of Medicine.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

The Batman does not repeat himself. He does not have to.

Anger flares up in Tam's chest. “You can’t just… you can’t do that! You cannot just swoop in and orchestrate things however you like. Because I’m a doctor and it was my shift and this is my job and you… you! You’re the one who wears _bat ears_ and I’m the one who cuts people open! You got that!? So let’s both stick to what we’re good at!”

A fraction of emotion peeks beneath the mask. Confusion. “Doctor Fox, what are you talking about?”

“I don’t really know!” she admits loudly, embarrassed. “But you’re not a surgeon. You’ve never even taken your boards!”

“No,” he agrees, humoring her. “I haven’t.”

“Good. So, now that we’ve cleared that up… I’m going to go now.” Tam looks at her bathroom door, her overturned hamper full of clean scrubs she still hasn’t folded. She could still head in for her shift. But leaving the Batman in her apartment feels strange and insane, but par for the course for the last twenty four hours.

“You applied to finish your residency at Thomas Wayne Memorial.”

“I… what?” Tam stutters. “I mean, yes. But also, why?”

“It’s the best program in the city.”

“It’s the best program in the state,” Tam corrects. He smiles at that. It’s kind of creepy to look at. It doesn’t quite fit his face or the mask or the suit of body armor. Almost the same way it feels surreal to see the jet-black silhouette in the daylight.

“You didn’t make it into the program, however. Then you applied at Gotham Mercy General.”

Tam deflates. She already knew Mercy was a distant second when compared to Memorial. “Thanks for reminding me. I’d almost forgotten.”

“None of this is a question of merit. By all reports, in the year you applied for, the hospital had already fulfilled its ‘diversity’ quota. Out of the sixty accepted applicants, two spots went to Doctors Taylor-Singh and Dominguez.”

Swinging her feet over her bed, Tam is grateful she’s wearing pants, if nothing else. She didn’t need a reminder of the inequities inherent to her chosen field this early in the morning… or afternoon. “You know, I could have just taken a cushy office job. One in your building, by the way. Dad would have let me, would have given me a corner office, even. And you,” she points to the wide bat sigil on his chest, “you couldn’t have stopped me because I’m my father’s favorite and he makes you too much money on a quarterly basis for you to micromanage him.”

The corner of Batman’s mouth twitches.

“Honestly, I could be raking in cash just by pushing numbers, and you’d be paying me to do it, to do basically nothing! Instead of you standing in my house telling me how I’m not up to snuff in my career—”

“No, Tamara. That’s not what I’m here to tell you.”

“Then what—”

“The board of surgeons who passed over your application has been… rearranged. Especially with the removal of Doctor Thomas Elliott. There are a number of openings in the program. We need more people with talent. And someone has to replace the wash-outs who switched to easier specialties.”

Tam stares at him, long and hard. She shakes her head. “If Memorial wanted me on staff, they had their chance.”

“Tamara—” Batman starts, before her eyes narrow at him. “Doctor Fox, do you know that your mentor Leslie Thompkins once practiced at Thomas Wayne Memorial?”

“Of course. She tells me twice a shift that she’ll never go back there.”

“That’s because she’s aware of the off-the-books surgical wing in the sub-basement where me and my associates—”

“Whoa, whoa, wait!” Tam says. “Are you telling me Memorial is where you and the other masks go to get their emergency medicine?” Tam’s mind spins at the possibilities, what a kind of tech and supply and secrecy such a feat would even require to stay safe and effective. “This makes so much sense. No wonder Leslie quit.”

Batman nods. “She does not approve, to put it lightly. She’s even gone so far as refusing care to anyone considered a… _mask_ , as you put it.”

“Wait, what?” Tam tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “No. That’s not possible… Doctor Thompkins would never.” Because yes, Leslie hated vigilantism and the gung-ho cowboy tactics of anyone who believed they answered to no one. But even on her crankiest, grouchiest, most judgemental of days, Tam could never imagine her doing such a thing. “You have to be mistaken. Doctor Thompkins would never withhold care. No good surgeon would ever deny medicine, no matter… no matter who it was.”

The Batman says nothing for the longest. Some how that is the most damning part of it all. “I… apologize. I don’t mean to tarnish your image of her. She is still an excellent doctor.”

Tam bites her lip. The greatest skill Leslie ever gave to her was the ability to use her ears. Knowing that being a doctor meant listening more than speaking. And what Tam is hearing now is the tail-end of a story she can’t really imagine. There’s more to the relationship here. More than a friction of morals and procedure and legality. Whatever working or personal arrangement that existed between Batman and Leslie, between Tim’s mentor and her own, it is one that failed spectacularly. Painfully, even. It might be something beyond repair, and Tam knows one thing to be true; that the Batman is truly sorry for the state of it all.

She had never before imagined such a man could have regrets. The idea of the Batman always seemed to big for such things.

He clears his throat. “But I am not here to talk about the past. This is about you, and how you clearly have the makings of an excellent doctor.”

“I, um, thank you.” Tam says. She cannot quite shake the world altering revelations weighing on her, but she can change gears. “I suppose I forgot to ask, how is Nightwing… uh, Dick? The patient?”

“He’s fine. Up and moving. Has nothing but praise for you and your care.”

Tam smiles. “Take that with a grain of salt. He was out of it for most of the time.”

“Still, not a lot of doctors are willing to practice in what amounts to an active war-zone, off the clock, at the ready. Hell, most would be too worried about liabilities. That’s why I need you to come work at Memorial. The offer has already been made. All you need to do is accept.”

“You mean accept a position at a program that snubbed me, because they didn’t need another woman or another black doctor? Change course right at the end of my residency? Potentially alienating the only surgeon who ever saw something special in me, who was willing to take me under her wing, something Leslie might never forgive me for… all so I can what? Occasionally work on some super secret superhero surgeries?”

“Yes. Exactly that.”

Tam breathes in through her nose. “I’m not my dad, you know. I’m not going to be satisfied with just having the position handed to me, all because you think I’m good at keeping secrets. And I make my own decisions. Sometimes, I might push back on a case if I don’t agree on a course of action. I won’t ever do anything that compromises the oath I took, _to do no harm_.” Tam realizes she might have said all that too fast, but her meaning is clear. She isn’t a woman who comprises. “Because for all their faults, Dad and Leslie taught me that much. So there. That’s my counter offer.”

The Batman says nothing for the longest. He extends his hand, ready to shake on it. “You saying that is how I know you’re the only woman for the job.”

Looking up at the myth of the man standing in front of her, the immensity of what he’s asking truly hits her. To be the healer of those who risk everything. To be their medical advocate and guide and defender. To be the person who helps make them whole so they can get back up to fight another day. To be a vigilante doctor. Because the short and long of it all, is that the Batman is asking _her_ to be _his_ doctor.

Goddamn this city. Goddamn the way it could still surprise her.

She reach out and shakes his gloved hand. “Alright. You have a deal. I mean, how could I really say no?”

Her phone buzzes on the bedside table and Tam looks away for a second. Another emergency alert. Turning back around she finds she’s sitting alone in her apartment. Which is… disconcerting to say the least. And rude. Incredibly rude.

But even with the Batman gone, there’s an email in her inbox informing her of the offer to Memorial, leaving she’s mostly sure she didn’t imagine it all. Scrolling through her other messages, there’s several check ins from her parents, from her brother Luke, and even an unlisted number that she’s pretty sure is Tim.

Tam grins. Stretching out and breathing a sigh of relief, she pulls out a pair of scrubs to iron for her next shift. The good Doctor Fox is sure she has one last shift in her for Gotham Mercy General before she’s on to bigger and better things.

_**fin.** _


End file.
